Ideas for Transfer day please

I will be meeting my new year 4 class for the first time and it will be my first session of proper teaching, ie I will no longer have the excuse that I am a student teacher!!!

I will definitely try to take a photo of each of them so I can learn their names over the holidays (hopefully this will prove to be my secret weapon in behaviour management in the first week). Maybe I can make these into a display?

I had thought about maybe taking some seeds and getting them to plant them so they would all be sprouting in September as a welcome to their new classroom but then realised I would have to take home, water and care for 30 plants for 2 months, not to mention the extras I would need in case some don't grow. Not even sure what sort of seeds to use. Maybe I could send them each home on transfer day with a seed in a pot and ask them to bring them back in September so we could measure them and make a graph?

Does that sound like a great idea or just the daft seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time over enthusiasm of a soon to be NQT?

Sorry this is a bit of an essay but any transfer day ideas would be great!

I've decided a couple of things I'm going to do, but I've been teaching my class this week anyway and will be for most of the rest of the term as their teacher was off so they brought me in early.

I'm going to take a photograph of each child in black and white, which they can then paint in lots of different colours (probably four small photos)

I'm going to give each child a postcard to send back to school over the Summer, which will then do a 'where have we been?' display with.

Going to do class contract, play lots of games and just general other things that I think of at the time.

A really quick way of learning children's names: (Did this my first day with the class, knew all their names by the second)
Line the children up in alphabetical order, a letter at a time e.g. 'stand up if your an A' ask their name and then line them up. Keep going along the line saying their names, when you get to the end add another letter. Keep practising till you think you've got it, then say 'mix up' children all move and you have to see if you can still remember. The children love it and it helps you get to know them quickly.